Cal's Ted Agu tried to tackle UCLA's Damien Thigpen at the Rose Bowl in October. Agu was from Bakersfield.

Photo: Michael Pimentel, Associated Press

Cal's Ted Agu tried to tackle UCLA's Damien Thigpen at the Rose...

Image 2 of 6

Ted Agu of the California Golden Bears poses for a portrait circa 2011 in Berkeley, California.

Photo: Collegiate Images

Ted Agu of the California Golden Bears poses for a portrait circa...

Image 3 of 6

Cal athletic director Sandy Barbour and head football coach Sonny Dykes speak at a news conference to address the death of Cal Bears football defensive end Ted Agu during a team workout this morning in Berkeley, Calif. on Friday, Feb. 7, 2014.

An unidentified player arrives at the Cal Bears football training facility at Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, Calif. on Friday, Feb. 7, 2014. Defensive player Ted Agu died this morning while he was training with the team.

Athletics staff member Henriette Mena (far left) listens as a team physician gives details to the death of football player Ted Agu during a news conference in Haas Pavilion on the camps of University of California at Berkeley on Friday, February 7, 2014 in Berkeley, Calif.

Photo: Beck Diefenbach, Special To The Chronicle

Athletics staff member Henriette Mena (far left) listens as a team...

Image 6 of 6

Unidentified players console each other in front outside of the Cal Bears training facility at Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, Calif. on Friday, Feb. 7, 2014. Defensive player Ted Agu died this morning while he was training with the team.

A grim scene unfolded Friday at Haas Pavilion, in a building constructed to house athletic glory and pride. Not tragedy.

Less than a week after Cal football player Ted Agu rushed the Haas court to celebrate the basketball Bears' win over then-top-ranked Arizona - a happy college student embracing his college life - Cal officials gathered in an adjacent room and announced the worst news possible.

Agu, a 21-year-old walk-on defensive end from Bakersfield, collapsed and died early Friday morning after a supervised training run.

"There is no greater tragedy for us than to lose one of our incredibly bright and passionate young people, far too soon," said athletic director Sandy Barbour, fighting back tears.

Cal head coach Sonny Dykes called it "a tragedy that no one can comprehend."

Cal was prohibited by law from releasing detailed information about possible pre-existing medical conditions and will wait for the coroner to determine cause of death. Cal's athletic team doctor, Casey Batton, said that he had known Agu since he arrived in Berkeley as a freshman in 2010 and had never known him to struggle in workouts before.

According to Batton, Agu was on an early-morning training run with the football team. When he started to struggle, near Bowles Hall - about 150 yards from the stadium - officials put him on a cart to drive him back. Batton said Agu was alert, talking and hydrating on the ride, but collapsed as the cart entered the stadium. CPR was immediately administered, a defibrillator was utilized and emergency personnel arrived. Agu was transported to Alta Bates Medical Center, where he died.

Though Cal quickly put up a protective shield around the team, and not many outside the program knew much about Agu, by all accounts he was a shining example of what college athletics can be. He was a walk-on to Jeff Tedford's team who had earned an athletic scholarship last spring from Dykes.

"I can't tell you how sad this makes me feel," said Tedford, the new offensive coordinator in Tampa Bay. "When I first heard it, I couldn't believe it. I can't imagine what his teammates are going through because it happened right in front of them."

Agu was described as a young man with a zest for life, academics and his team. He wanted to go to medical school. He worked as a peer counselor for incoming freshmen.

"Ted's the ultimate team guy," Dykes said. "He came here because he loved the game. He had a passion for life, he loved to learn, he loved to laugh. He had a great sense of humor.

"He was rewarded with an athletic scholarship because of his hard work and dedication. He's what's good about college athletics. He's exactly what you want from a young man."

This is one more blow to a struggling program. Cal has been under a dark cloud in recent years, enduring a terrible stretch plagued by the type of problems that often hit athletic programs: losses on the field, problems in the classroom, recruiting difficulties, financial woes. Dykes has been criticized quite often since he arrived at Cal in December 2012.

The death of a player is in a completely different category. A sobering loss that makes every other difficulty pale in comparison.

The Cal community responded to the sad news on social media, with an outpouring of grief and love. Among those commenting was Tierra Rogers, whose Cal basketball career was cut short when she collapsed during a practice before her freshman season. Rogers was told she could never play basketball again, that an existing heart condition could kill her.

"This is a day to reflect on all the things we are thankful for and hold dear to us," Rogers tweeted. "This touches and hurts me deeply as many athletes collapse and die year after year from a heart condition or unknown reasons."

There are a lot of questions still to be answered about what caused an apparently healthy young man to die so suddenly. On Friday, rather than organize practices or workouts, officials arranged counseling services for their athletes and started the initial stages of planning some type of memorial and some way to honor the short life of Agu.

And upstairs in Haas, yards from where Agu celebrated life last Saturday, a female athlete said, "He was one of the nicest people I'd ever met in my life."